


A Perfect Heart's Length Away

by talkingtothesky



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Episode: s03e10 The Devil's Share, Episode: s03e16 RAM, Experimental Style, Guilt, M/M, Non-Chronological
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 10:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3526640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingtothesky/pseuds/talkingtothesky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harold's mind tries to hold onto the men he loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Perfect Heart's Length Away

**Author's Note:**

> The sections are designed to blur into one another. The Nathan parts are enclosed by ( ), and Finch is only referred to as Finch with John.
> 
> Title is a lyric from Half Life by Imogen Heap.

"May I?" John murmured, as he dipped his head.

 

Finch breathed in deeply through his nose and tilted his chin up as far as he comfortably could. He let the breath out again as John's lips settled at his throat. John brushed feather light kisses over Finch's skin, then found a pulse point and pressed his mouth against it, harder, but still careful. His stubble rasped against the underside of Finch's jaw, sending pleasant shivers through him. He gasped and pressed firmly on the back of Reese's head, mashing John's lips against him. John growled, bared his teeth, and before either of them knew it John had lost control and sucked a bite into Finch's delicate neck.

 

Marking him.

 

Nathan had liked to do that, too.

 

("Nobody'll see you've got a hickey, Harold. You're squirreled away at the top of my building all day long, no-one even knows you're there, except me. "

 

"Our building." Harold corrected.

 

"Yeah, but, officially." Nathan smirked. "It's all mine." He slid his palm down Harold's back, drew him closer. "Like you."

 

Harold sighed. "I'd prefer it if you wouldn't..."

 

"What?"

 

"Try and keep me. I'm not a bird in a cage."

 

Nathan made a soft, unhappy little sound. "You know I don't see it that way. If anything, I'm your corporate errand boy. We need better quality servers? I go round begging fifteen different companies for the best specs they have, while you're safe and invisible in your electronic tower."

 

"Perhaps I should remind you the Machine is anything but safe.")

 

"You make me feel safe. Not from other people, though that too. Safer around everyone. God knows a monster like me shouldn't be out in society - may he rest in peace, Donnelly had a point - but with you I'm...safer." He trailed off, pressed his cheek into the pillow.

 

"I didn't know you still felt that way." Finch gently gripped John's chin and leaned closer, filling up his field of vision to be sure John knew he meant it. "You're not a monster. You never have been."

 

John huffed, disbelieving. "You did read my file, right? Not just the redacted version. On every one of those missions I tortured or killed at least someone."

 

Finch let him go as John flopped onto his back, forearm slung over his face to hide his eyes.

 

"Or you stood by while your partner did those things."

 

John sounded equally as cut up about this. "Yes."

 

"You tried to stop her. Sometimes you even risked your life under her nose to save those you were supposed to be erasing."

 

He sat up, gazing down at Finch. "That wouldn't be in my file."

 

The corners of Finch's mouth quirked up, eyes widening as he knowingly repeated something he'd disclosed once before. "I've been watching you for a long time, John."

 

John's breath caught. "If there were cameras, they _knew_ -"

 

"No cameras. I know because I was there. The night you let Daniel Casey go free."

 

There was a long silence as John processed this information. Eventually he returned with "he was talking on the phone when I stopped him."

 

Finch nodded. "I was attempting to convince him to use the new identity I had prepared for him."

 

"Huh. The number of times we almost met." He trailed his fingertips abstractedly over Finch's chest. "If I believed in fate..."

 

("It's a small world," Harold agreed. "The Machine only makes it smaller."

 

Nathan stared into the sliver of whisky left in his glass. "Could the Machine make it bigger again?"

 

Harold didn't know whether to frown or to laugh. Nathan had been coming to see him more frequently of late, to tell him his newly-divorced woes. Making up for the time they'd been apart, perhaps. "Are you asking me to get your ex-wife another new job halfway across the world so you don't have to bump into her at work?"

 

"Hell, you said it, not me."

 

"I only use my powers for a good cause." He hedged, hoping to tease Nathan out of his melancholy mood and into smiling again, like he used to.

 

"If you'd seen how awkward it was today you'd know it's a very worthy cause. Life-saving, even." He made mock strangling motions with his hand at his own neck.

 

Harold did laugh then, glad his plan was working. Nathan sounded lighter. He'd put down his glass without finishing it.

 

Then ice skittered down Harold's spine as Nathan stopped, halfway out of his chair. A shadow seemed to pass over his face. "Life saving," he said again, almost to himself. He stood up, crossed the room, crouched by Harold's feet. He grasped Harold's hand between both of his.

 

Nathan pleaded "I wish-")

 

"-you'd wake up, John. And yet, I don't. Because you shouldn't have to feel all of this, just now."

 

The steady beeping of the heart monitor filled the room, in the apartment-turned-safehouse which had once been Nathan's home. Finch had one cool hand lightly clasped around John's wrist, the other softly stroking through John's hair. The blood had long been washed from John's hands, but it would remain for a while. Finch studied his pale, exhausted face. If he could make it so that John would live a life without pain...

 

"I watched you both get shot, right in front of me. I was helpless. Again."

 

Finch stopped talking before the bitterness became overwhelming, because this wasn't about him and his survivor's guilt. It was about getting John better. This was the only admission he would allow himself, and he was doing it while Reese was so heavily sedated it was highly unlikely he'd be able to hear him.

 

John had lost a truly staggering amount of blood. It was testament to his determination and resilience that he'd still been standing all that time, let alone planning and carrying out a skilfully orchestrated assault on Quinn's closely guarded safehouse. Up until the moment Reese had collapsed into Finch's hands, he had been the definition of chaotic avenging angel. And Finch had been afraid, both of him and for him. Reese had lost too much too many times to be easily talked down. If the gun hadn't jammed -

 

("-I'd have saved her." Nathan kept repeating, breathless and terrified. His fear was obvious even through the tiny speakers, above the clicking of the cassette tape as it gradually unwound. He'd been _stupid_ , so stupid to record himself keeping an account of the numbers he'd worked on. Harold couldn't even salvage any crumb of comfort from hearing his voice, because it only reminded him that he was the reason Nathan would never speak again.

 

He listened to them, just the same. Every word of Nathan's disappointments, his near misses and triumphs and flukes. The people he'd met, friends he'd effortlessly made, like he always did. If Harold wasn't already determined to carry on the mission his lifelong friend had started, these tapes would have convinced him.

 

He destroyed them all, of course. But he returned the photographs and maps to the hidden safe behind the bookshelf. It was a security risk, but he had to keep something.)


End file.
